1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of data transmission systems and particularly data transmission systems employing networking device for transmission of digital information in the form of facsimile transmission to various communications device and more particularly to the transmission of fax information through a packet switching network as an attachment to an email message using the receiving facsimile number as identification of the destination facsimile machine.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Facsimile (fax) devices are a popular mechanism for transmission of information. Packet switching networks, where information, or a message, is transmitted in the form of various packets and then compiled or assembled back together at the receiving site, have gained wide popularity in recent years. This is in part due to the lowering of costs associated with the use of packet switching networks. In a packet switching network environment, such as the Internet, messages in the form of xe2x80x98emailxe2x80x99 are transferred around the world from remotely situated communication device to other remotely-situated communication equipment. An example of this is in a packet-switching network environment when a fax-user or a user of a Personal Computer (PC) having modem capability sends an email message to a receiving device having fax capability that may be located in another part of the world that also has modem capability. The information or message that is transmitted from the former user is broken up into packets and each packet, along with address and header information in accordance with industry standards, is processed and sent through a telephone line (or Local Area Network (LAN) or other communication medium) to the receiving device. At the receiving site, the various packets of the message are assembled back together and a user on the receiving end is then able to read the email message.
As the use of email has become widely prevalent recently, more information has been transferred between network equipment through the use of email. For example, word processing application files are now readily transferred between email users, as are Internet web files in the form of Hyper Text Markup Language xe2x80x98HTMLxe2x80x99. Similarly, fax information or data is transmitted as an attachment to an email message to other equipment that accepts reception of faxes. For example, a PC can be set up to send an email message having attached thereto Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) files, which may be transmitted through the Internet to another PC having fax and modem capability or, alternatively, to another fax machine.
Prior art techniques in use today allow for multiple copies of the faxed transmission to be sent to various fax machines or PCs. During the processing of such a fax message and while in route from one PC to another, various copies of the fax message are created and stored in a mass storage media, such as a hard disk, and thereafter individually transmitted to receiving fax machines, PCs, or other receiving devices.
One of the problems with such prior art techniques is that a large amount of storage space is required for storing copies of a fax transmission on a hard disk or other mass storage media. For example, a typical fax cover sheet alone is approximately 50 to 100 k bytes (1 k byte is 1024 bytes and a byte is typically 8 bits wide) in size and requires this amount of space for storage thereof. Furthermore, if more than one fax machine is to receive the transmission, a duplicate copy of the entire fax transmission is kept on the hard disk thereby requiring additional storage space. Storage space, such as hard disk, is expensive because it requires circuitry and components and is costly to develop.
Another problem with existing fax transmissions to various fax devices in prior art systems is that when sending fax information to various fax devices through a network environment such as a packet switching network environment (for example, the Internet), there is much additional network traffic generated thereby decreasing the performance of the overall system and increasing costs to users of such systems who pay toll charges for use thereof.
Therefore, in a packet switching network environment, a method and apparatus is needed for efficient broadcasting of fax messages to multiple fax recipients in an inexpensive manner while maintaining the costs associated with the manufacture of such an apparatus low and further increasing the throughput of the network system and decreasing costs associated with the use of such a system by users thereof.
Briefly, a preferred embodiment of the present invention includes a fax broadcasting system for use in a packet switching network environment for transferring fascimile information in the form of multiple packets, received from a sending communications device, to a plurality of receiving communications devices. The fax broadcasting system includes a networking device for receiving, in packet form, an email message from the sending communication device, the email message comprising fascimile (fax) infomation, which is also received in packet form (packets of fax information) and the networking device being utilized for transmitting the fax information to the receiving communications devices. The networking equipment includes a processing device having a plurality of storage spaces, each of said plurality of storage spaces for storing one packet of the fax information (a packet storage space), the processing device for receiving the email message, in packet form, having attached thereto fax information in packet form. As each fax information packet is received, the processing device stores one copy thereof in a corresponding one of the packet storage spaces and sends the stored packets of fax information to the receiving communications devices, wherein no more than one copy of the fax information is stored for broadcasting the same to at least two receiving communications devices.